Yahoo Users United to Right the Yahoo Wrongs

Why We’re Here

A FEW WORDS FROM

YOUR FEATHERED LEADER

@FeatheredLeader

WHY ARE WE ON THIS CRUSADE FOR CLASSIC?

I know that this space is ordinarily used to have the blog owner tell you a little about themselves, and I suppose I could do that, but honestly, I don’t consider this to be MY blog. I consider it to be the Yahoo Groups users’ blog. I just happen to kind of own it. : ) This is basically an extension of our original Yahoo group, Mods and Members, that was instrumental in effecting the rollback of Yahoo’s 2010 groups remodel.

I decided to create this blog because the times have changed. Gone are the days when it was easy to get someone’s e-mail address when you wanted to contact them. Now everything is Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. I was never someone who really wanted to be that connected to everyone around me, and frankly, I’m still not. But I decided that if I had any chance of winning this fight with Yahoo this second time around, I had to get on their playing field, so here I am.

In the past 40 days during this crusade against Neo, I’ve learned how to Tweet instead of just Hoot. I’ve learned how to blog instead of just post. Yep, I even took a crash course in WordPress : “Become a Blogger in 5 days or Less!”

Actually, there wasn’t any course. There was Laura, our Blogger Boss, who also serves as my “Twitter Tutor Teaching Tweeting!” We could not have done this, especially NOT in five days, without her help. I did, however, just buy books on both tweeting and blogging so I can learn to be better at it myself. : ) I still like VI a lot better though!

Then there is Suz. One of my moderators on Mods and Members, she has been my cheering section, my “help me strategize” partner, and my creative content editor. It doesn’t hurt that we both tend to stay up all night long. : )

I brought this crusade into the new age because I want the world to understand what Classic Groups are. It’s almost like tearing down a historic building or trashing a classic car. They have such rich history, and that history is slowly being destroyed as the groups continue to fail and crumble under the Neo hammer.

Classic Groups were here first. They were made for those of us who started listserves and forums before smartphones existed. They contain years of history, memories, photos, and archives that are all being swiftly destroyed by Yahoo as surely as if they’d used a battering ram.

And the Groups Users are crying out: “Stop! What did we ever do to deserve this? Why, why are you doing this to us?” That’s the sentence I think I see most often in what I call the “Feedback Trench” — Yahoo’s User Voice Feedback Forum. These aren’t just the sorts of people who can pick up easily and go elsewhere to start over. They are elderly people, disabled, veterans, and more. The Neo interface is not something they can manage or handle. It’s too complex, too buggy, and not up to ADA requirements. It simply does not work for them.

Even the young people, for whom Neo was supposedly created, could not function under its reign. They sadly deleted their large network of Yahoo groups across the country and then returned to make a protest group and stand beside me…to my amazement. These are high school kids and young adults who spent years tutoring, sharing homework, and mentoring on their extensive network of groups which is now gone, yet more casualties of Neo. But they are here, making a stand not just for themselves or their own grandparents, but for all who are elderly or disabled and who are caught up in the Neo chaos.

So we all stand united here today: my group and I; Andy’s SayNo2Neo group; and even Shal Farley and the GMG and YGOG groups that are striving to get Yahoo to fix Neo and make it at least work. We are all standing together here because the bottom line is that Neo is a fail. It was untested, buggy code that was sprung with no warning on thousands and thousands of unsuspecting users, and it’s causing real-world harm to very real people.

So this is our crusade.

As you read this blog, how can you not feel sorrow for the users who are in such shock and despair at this impact on their lives? How can you not care about their suffering? We hope that instead you will empathize with them and understand.

It is also our hope that someone will finally step up and DO something about it. Stop Neo immediately, and roll it back for now. Go back to the Classic Groups, even for just awhile! Give everyone enough time to preserve what’s left of their archives and their memories before Yahoo manages to destroy anything else.

I wasn’t in time to save everyone. Many had already left in despair, disbelief, and anger by the time I found out. If only I had known sooner that this was happening, I would have taken it up long before now. I didn’t, though, and I’m deeply sorry that it was too late for so many.

However, there is still time to stop it for the ones who are left, and if we can’t stop it, then our teams here will see to it that every last Groups user who needs help gets it. We’ll help them relocate. We’ll help them save what they can. We’ll help them cope throughout this crisis. The world will know of their fight and their plight.

That is what this blog and our crusade are all about.

Nightowl >8#
Owner Mods & Members
Yahoo Clubs member since March 10, 2001

Nice to find you here. As many know, a link was found tohttp://stage.groups.yahoo.com/MyGroups and for one evening (Oct 22) we could see our groups in classic version but they had added attributes from the Neo version as well. They looked more friendly and warm in colors and more inviting than the Neo version.

I posted to a closed request to return to us the ability to go to the stage.groups after it was shut down, and I told Yahoo this would return Yahoo Groups to a format that could be used by old folk, seniors who are not tech savy, the vision impaired and the handicapped as well as freecycle groups and freegle groups. At the same time, it would give Yahoo the new innovations they want to put forward.

I suspect most of us would be happy with this as a middle ground. I am hoping the News Media will pick up more on this. Most of their articles are on Yahoo email’s sudden changes this past week.

Since the advertisers are Yahoo’s real customers, I hope people will tell the advertisers about their distress and the problems this is causing for large segments of society.

nedraE: While it might seem strange, the advertisers are just the middlemen; we are the real customers that Yahoo seeks, since if we don’t buy the products advertised, they don’t get money. That’s why it’s so puzzling that Yahoo won’t give us what we asked for, unless they don’t realize this fact.

With such a major systemic failure of the New UI, coupled with the secondary failure to correct or roll back, isn’t it obvious this was planned? I’ve been a SW developer for decades, and I know what is involved to do a release right. I believe this failure was designed to disrupt the groups, perhaps there are a few groups that were key targets “the elites” wanted to shut down.

As those of us look for alternatives to host our groups it would be wise to look into who funded them. It might surprise many to learn of the CIA influence of projects like google and facebook and how well they serve as a database for spying and targeting “dissidents”, i.e. common people trying to work together freely on a volunteer basis.

If there’s one thing missing on this site (pardon me if I missed it) it’s an analysis of who’s behind these alternative groups. I would like to see this surfaced in the comparison PDF for example.

If you’re concerned about the state of affairs we find ourselves in, the least you can do is be take responsibility and take a deeper look into the goals and agendas of the alternatives proposed.

To Mr. T:
I don’t really know how to do what you are suggesting, plus I have enough on my plate just running the crusade. But if you would like to investigate the alternates and who funds them, feel free to do so. We can always use more help.

You may have noticed that there’s only one alternate with it’s own page, and that’s Cubits. That was because when I first got started researching them at all, was when all the other services started getting messed up and I had my hands full inviting them to join us, and making places for them to post on here.

But we always need more help, someone to research, someone to collect data. So you’re welcome to do that if you like. I’ve got to focus right now on getting the press to hear us, and getting our story out. Because if it’s not out soon, there won’t be anyone left to write about.

Looks like I’ve got a lot of reading to do.
Yahoo Groups have gone the way of the Edsel.
Yahoo took a good thing and put it into the Stone Age.
Thanks for your service in our struggles to get our groups back and on-track.
Virgil